When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie Bezos, announced their divorce in January, the media speculated wildly about how the divorce might impact Amazon. Now, it seems the whole matter has been settled and has MacKenzie Bezos walking away with 25 percent of the couple’s stock in Amazon, or approximately 4 percent in the company. She is now the fourth wealthiest woman in the world. Interestingly, Jeff Bezos is to retain control of the Amazon voting rights associated with MacKenzie’s share post-divorce, leaving Amazon within his control.
As I mentioned in my prior blog post, MacKenzie Bezos was not required to “take” half of the marital assets post-divorce. By all accounts, because the Bezos divorce has been fairly amicable, it is possible she simply agreed to less than what she could have demanded in order to maintain a good, working relationship with her ex-husband. Or, maybe it didn’t matter all that much to her. As they say, when you split a pot of gold in half, you get two pots of gold.